


specialized focus

by tagteamme



Series: has anyone checked the mail (prompts) [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Humor, M/M, Medical Residency AU, Meet-Cute, Overt Thirst, Romance, Shiro Saves the Day, but most importantly the most accurate classification of this fic is, denny's au, the only casualty is keith's dignity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 00:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20300191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tagteamme/pseuds/tagteamme
Summary: Keith ends up drunk at a diner, three seats down from the most handsome man he's seen in his life.The waitress takes their order, and Keith ignores Lance’s indignation in favour of hearing the man’s luxurious voice ask her for a giant breakfast skillet.“What about your diet, Dr. Shirogane?” The man's friend says, and Keith thinks he’s ready to ascend. He’s hot and a doctor. Hunk would be proud, if he hadn’t decided to be a traitor and stay at the party while leaving Keith to babysit.





	specialized focus

**Author's Note:**

> A re-work of [ this tumblr prompt](https://phaltu.tumblr.com/post/178057898905/how-about-doctorhospitalvet-au-whether-you-do) from a year ago!
> 
> Sorry I haven't posted/updated anything new in a while, life's been crazy busy (´；д；`) but I was struck by the urge to rework this fic!! 
> 
> I'm actually considering polishing up and putting a bunch of my tumblr fics on the archives...let's see...

Keith doesn’t normally believe in divine intervention, not to the degree that others do. Not normally anyways. But this feels like one of those nights.

It’s not really out of choice, but Keith’s at a Denny’s at 3 A.M with Lance as they try to stuff hashbrowns into their face. They’re attempting to sober up from a shitty house party, and Lance is trying very hard to pretend he doesn’t have a giant angry welt across his forehead. 

Lance blames Keith for the fact that he fell during his poor attempt at a kegstand and Keith thinks it’s totally undeserved, especially when it was Hunk who was the one who got distracted and accidentally let Lance go. Keith had tried to hold onto Lance with all he had but admittedly, it was not a lot. Lance had hit the rim of the metal keg with a _ thud _ loud enough that when he flopped to the ground, Keith thought he might have legitimately died.

Maybe Keith hadn’t been the bestest of friends when he rolled Lance over and poked him, seeing if he could get him to breathe. The host of the party, a very tall and British fellow from one of Lance’s bird courses had come over to see if Lance was alive. He toed Lance's rib and had casually asked Keith if the large bruise blooming across his friend's forehead was serious.

Once Lance opened his eyes with an angry expression and words about how his friends didn’t love him and if he was actually hurt he could have _ died_, they were both politely asked to leave. Surprisingly Hunk had been allowed to stay, but that’s probably because Hunk’s got more social aptitude than both Keith and Lance combined.

“How noticeable is it?” Lance asks for the fifth time, pointing to his forehead, despite getting angry every time a passerby gives him a concerned look.

“It’s not the greatest offence your face is currently committing,” Keith deadpans and it earns him a piece of hashbrown lobbed against his nose. He continues to look unaffected, knowing it’ll piss Lance off more than a reaction would. Keith chugs down some of his orange juice while Lance says something about having forgotten his mickey of Cuervo at the house party, and the door of the diner rings as two new patrons step in.

It’s only by chance that Keith’s brain manages to snap into focus enough to pay attention to them. One of them flies right over Keith’s head; he’s lanky and tall with sandy hair and what looks like an ever-present smirk. He kind of looks like a more rugged version of one of Keith’s classmates but Keith can’t remember who quite yet. The other one is proof that maybe divine intervention is what brought Keith to this diner to begin with.

He’s tall and broad. The first two are generally all that one needs to get onto Keith’s radar, but his face also looks like god had spent a little extra time on it. Keith’s never seen kinder eyes nor a sturdier jaw, and he doesn’t know what to do with either piece of information. The man’s got dark hair with white bangs pushed off his forehead and a thick scar across the bridge of his nose that makes him look roguish enough that Keith finds himself sitting up straighter.

The tequila might still be in his system but Keith knows that even sober, he’d be going googly-eyed over this man that’s asking for a table for two in a low, gravelly voice. It’s such a rich sound and Keith’s blessed enough to hear it again as he thanks the waitress for seating them.

“Keith?” Lance waves a hand in front of his face. “Hello?”

Keith nods and Lance narrows his eyes, looking over his shoulders.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he says, turning back to Keith and looking pointedly unimpressed. “Are you still drunk?”

“What?” Keith says absent-mindedly, watching the man. He’s wearing dark grey scrubs like the shorter man, and has a small logo on his side that matches the local university hospital. Keith watches as the two take a seat three tables down from Lance and him are sitting. He lucks out and the hot guy sits opposite from his friend, right in Keith’s direct line of sight. 

The waitress takes their order, and Keith ignores Lance’s indignation in favour of hearing the man’s luxurious voice ask her for a giant breakfast skillet.

“What about your diet, Dr. Shirogane?” The man's friend says, and Keith thinks he’s ready to ascend. He’s hot _and_ a doctor. Hunk would be proud, if he hadn’t decided to be a traitor and stay at the party while leaving Keith to babysit. 

Dr. Shirogane chuckles, and Keith goes a little cross-eyed.

“Hey ugly,” Lance snaps his fingers in front of Keith’s face. “I’m talking to you.”

“Don’t care,” Keith deigns to give Lance one flat look, sticking his tongue out at him. Lance gives him the middle finger and Keith ignores him, looking back to the current object of his definitely-still-tipsy desire.

He seems to be engaged in deep conversation with the man sitting in front of him. Dr. Shirogane laughs at something and Keith tries hard not to slip into a daydream where he’s the one making the hot doctor laugh like that. Lance makes a face at Keith and Keith visualizes Dr. Shirogane sitting in front of him instead, eating without having ketchup dribbling down his front. It’s significantly more pleasant.

Keith wonders what kind of doctor he is. A terrible pick up line about getting a thorough checkup forms in his brain and unsurprisingly, he hears it in Lance’s voice. He shakes his head and tries to shoo the thought out before he does something stupid like lumber over to the man’s table and actually say it.

Fortunately, Keith's inability to be subtle stops him before anything else can.

The man’s gaze drifts over his friend’s shoulder while Keith sticks another hashbrown into his mouth, and he catches Keith staring. Keith freezes and his eyes widen, and he sees the corner of the man’s mouth tick upwards. Two things happen.

First, the good doctor winks. Keith’s never had a man this hot wink at him before which leads to the second thing. The hashbrown Keith swallowed has decided to go down the wrong way, probably too overwhelmed by the wink.

Keith starts making a choking sound, and gestures wildly towards Lance for help. Lance gives Keith the same unaffected look Keith had given him, and takes a pointed slurp from his soda.

“If you’re making noise then you’re fine,” he says, and for a good measure, adds a “bitchass.”

Keith gives him the middle finger, but the act of it makes the hashbrown lodge itself even weirder down his throat. Keith goes silent as he grasps his throat, and Lance finally realizes that something is in fact going wrong.

“Fuck,” Lance says, eyes widening. And yet, he continues to do nothing. “Fuck oh fuck oh fuck, _dude_, what the fuck?”

Keith flails frantically and out of the corner of his eye, he sees a large figure darting towards their table. He thinks it’s perhaps the grim reaper, eager to pull Keith into an early end, but said large figure yanks Keith up and gives his back five hard thwacks. Keith would be into it probably, if he wasn’t dying. 

Well-muscled arms wrap around him and clasp into a fist over his abdominals. It feels like a mallet to his diaphragm and Keith thinks that getting heimlich'd into oblivion is definitely not one of the ways he wants to go. It hurts like a _ bitch _ and he knows that this is what he gets for accidentally almost killing Lance during a keg stand.

Keith’s never, ever getting drunk again.

He chokes again, and on the third thrust, the hashbrown spills out of his mouth, tumbling onto the ground like the pathetic piece of shit potato it is. He coughs, throat feeling dry and scratchy, eyes watering. It takes him a long second to register that he’s on his tiptoes before the large figure lets him down and turns him around. Keith finds himself getting pushed back until he’s sitting on the counter top of their table and coming face-to-face with the unreasonably hot doctor from before.

“Holy shit,” Keith breathes, and he feels a large hand placed on top of his shoulder. He looks up, and notes that Hot Doctor’s face up close is significantly hotter than it was from a distance. Also seeing his height and broad shoulders up close is a religious experience, and Keith tries to focus as his head spins. “I almost died.”

“Not quite,” the man smiles kindly, and Keith can see his dinner companion try to get a glimpse of Keith over the man’s shoulders. The man elbows him out of the way, and his friend makes a noise of protest.

“He choked because you’re hot,” Lance supplies helpfully from where he’s still seated and munching on his peameal bacon. “Just to let you know.”

The only thing preventing a tidal wave of embarrassment from killing Keith instantly is the fact that the hashbrown had attempted to do it first and Keith’s still trying to recover from it. 

“Maybe it’s better if I did die,” Keith grimaces, trying to shift off the table. “Give me another one, let me finish the job.”

A large hand stops him, planting itself on his shoulder. It squeezes gently and Keith’s not going to disobey _ that _. 

“Take it easy,” the man says, and brings up Keith’s glass of OJ to Keith’s lips. “Try eating something that goes down a little better.”

“Like what?” Keith asks, folding his arms over his chest in an attempt to salvage any sort of coolness from the situation.

“Like di-” Lance starts to chirp but Keith tries to twist and lunge at him, swiping his arms out to smack Lance as Lance squawks. The hand on his shoulder immediately snaps to his collar and pulls him back and when Keith turns back to face the doctor, the other man’s ears are a vivid pink.

There’s a brief silence where they stare at each other; Keith’s not going to complain because he doubts he’s going to run into someone this hot again and he’s working on committing the way this man looks to memory. There’s a _ thump _ and the man winces as his friend knocks the back of his head with the heel of his palm but it seems to kick him into gear.

“Why don’t I take you out to dinner and show you?” the man asks finally. On the list of fantasies Keith expected to come true, this was definitely at the bottom, so he gapes at the man silently. 

Thankfully his body works quicker than his brain, and his head nods frantically as Keith still tries to find words. He gets a wide beaming smile in return so Keith counts it as a win, even if he’s not at his smoothest. The man’s friend snorts, Lance makes an _ ooooh _ noise and Keith decides that just this once, divine intervention is absolutely real.

**Author's Note:**

> shiro's POV is walking into denny's, seeing a hottie, and spending a good 10 minutes being told by matt to make a move
> 
> I tried to look up doctor pick-up lines for a fic title and oh god. god. they are so terrible. i'm so sorry.
> 
> come catch me on [ twitter](https://twitter.com/tagteamme) or [tumblr](https://phaltu.tumblr.com/)


End file.
